Framed (16 page)

“I’ll check it out,” Tom volunteered, to their surprise. He’d been quiet so far, content to listen to their reports to each other. They weren’t trained at conveying complex information, but they’d done a good job.

But Ginny shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll follow it up myself. Unless it has something to do with the police end of it? I’ll call and see if anyone remembers picking up anything unusual. It would be very interesting for the background story if it turns out we can publish prints.”

Tom agreed. “It looks to me like you’ve pretty much established your—what did you call it? Provenance?” He ticked off his points on his fingers. “The pictures Mr. Berger brought in indicate Jerry intended to paint the picture and did paint it. We’ve shown we can find the place. There’s the receipt for transport, the story about finding it by the road, and a pretty good trail once it gets to the bar. If you can trace it to the Rotary, will you need anything else?” He gave Ginny a moment to think about it, and continued when she shook her head. “Fine. I still need a lot of information, which I’m hoping you can give me. What do you know about Mike Bingham?”

“Mike?” Ginny repeated in surprise. “Very little. He was only in here once or twice, always with Abby, except for the time, you know, when he threatened Elsie. After Abby died he moved out west, I think. Sold the insurance agency and resigned as alderman—”

“Oh, good heavens!” Sue interrupted her. “That clump of bushes where we found the box, that was swamp alder! Do you think he chose that on purpose?”

“Who? Jerry? What do you mean?” Tom asked.

Sue waved her hand to indicate she needed to think. “Mike Bingham was an alderman in Mill Falls, right? And in the picture, Abby was pointing at the alder. With blood dripping out of her hand. Do you think that was a clue, that whatever is in the box has something to do with the ‘alder-man’? Something about his position?” She frowned at her theory. “It sounds crazy, but I wonder if Jerry was afraid
Mike
was going to kill him and Abby. Were they having an affair?” she asked Ginny and Howard. “Was Mike the kind of guy who would be so jealous he’d kill?”

Howard shook his head. “I never thought Jerry killed himself. It just wasn’t like him, but an affair is a different matter. He liked the ladies. I don’t know about Mike, though. I never knew him.”

Elsie stirred, but before she could comment, Tom DiAndreo put his oar in. “Wait, I want to go back a minute. I think Sue might have a good idea there, that what is in the box might have something to do with Mike’s position as alderman. There was something around that time going on in Mill Falls about tax irregularities… Damn, I can’t remember. I’ll look it up back at the office. It’s probably nothing. But why would there be appraisals from Jemmie’s if it had to do with Mike as an alderman?”

“I still think Jemmie did it,” Elsie insisted. “He’s crazy enough to do it. Maybe Jerry and Abby found out something about Jemmie, and that’s why the appraisals are in there. The alder bush is just a coincidence.”

Sue deflated. “You’re probably right. Alder is everywhere in boggy places like that. If it were witch hazel, I’d be looking for a coven.”

“Well, what sort of motive might Jemmie have, if he were the killer?” Tom continued. “Assuming it really was a double murder and not murder/suicide as they determined ten years ago.”

Several voices rose at once, denying the suicide.

“Jerry didn’t own a gun!”

“Have you seen
One Year
?”

“No way he would have killed himself. Everything was just starting for him as an artist!”

Tom made soothing motions with his hands. “I’m assuming somebody else killed them, okay? Let’s assume it was Jemmie. Why would he do it?”

“Because he was nuts,” Elsie declared. “You know how he is.”

Sue chuckled. “Yeah, maybe Abby wanted him to make her a frog brooch.” That provoked a round of laughter. Even Tom joined in.

“Okay,” he went on after they calmed down, “just because Jemmie was nuts. Maybe she insulted him, or maybe he just fixated on her—we’ll never know. How about this…what if he cheated her on the jewelry and she found out? How would she have known? But then,” he muttered, half to himself, “why would she confide in Jerry and not her husband, or the police?” He put his chin in his hand, deep in thought. “We need more information. Leave it to me. I have resources you don’t. Besides, you’ve already put yourselves in danger. I’m serious, folks. Don’t do anything without running it by me, understand?”

“But Jemmie’s under arrest,” Ginny objected.

“We have no idea if someone else was involved. Even that guy you talked to about the painting, that bar owner, might know more than we think he might.”

“You’re getting married next week, right?” Elsie asked.

He blinked at the change of subject, but he couldn’t prevent the happy smile that lit up his rather dark features. “Yeah. I’ll be away for a week on our honeymoon—”

“Where are you going?”

“Cancun. We’ve gone down there a couple of times and we love it. The scuba and snorkeling is out of this world. Anyway, don’t worry. Jemmie is going to be held for at least a week in the hospital, until he’s stabilized. They’ll keep him longer if they think he’s a danger to himself or others. In the meantime, I’ll do some checking around, talk to some contacts here and there. You folks just sit tight and do your jobs. Let me do mine. Okay?”

“I want to call the Rotary Club in Churchville or Douglass to see if anyone there picked up the painting,” Ginny insisted.

Tom thought for a moment. “I can’t see any harm in that. But anything else, talk to me first, okay?”

Sue hesitated. “About those photos?”

“I never saw you take any photos.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. She’d never seen his eyes look so stony.

He relented a bit. “I’ll let you know what I can. I have to talk to Douglass and the Major Crimes Unit.”

He’d better act fast, he thought, before Elsie took that dog for another walk.

Chapter Twenty-One

Two days later, Jenna Rudolph was back in Brush & Bevel to view her cleaned painting. Ginny fetched it from the safe and set in her hands. She held it up to the light and admired it from several angles, tilting her head this way and that. “It really cleaned up beautifully. I like it much better now. It was so dark and dim. And you’re sure this is a real Jerry Berger?”

“Yes,” Ginny assured her. “I’ve compared the signature to quite a few others we have on record. On his other paintings and on things like checks, as well. His artistic signature was rather distinctive. Here, I’ll show you.”

Ginny had prepared this little demonstration with care. She had an assortment of Jerry’s prints ready to display to Jenna. “Here, you can see how he signed the original of
A Walk in the Rain
, and in the margin here he countersigned it in pencil. That’s the normal thing for a limited edition print, you know. The pencil signature looks different, of course, because a pencil is easier to write with than a paintbrush. You can see the same thing on these other prints.” She pointed them out to Jenna, letting the woman take her time to examine them.

Jenna looked them over, comparing one to another, and all of them to the name on the lower right corner of the nude. She chewed her lip for a moment. “To my eye they look the same. You would know best, since you are familiar with his work. You say you’ve found evidence in his studio papers that he was working on this?”

Ginny brought out the photograph Howard had discovered. “My staff have also found the location of the rocks,” she added, without revealing the aftermath of that ill-advised venture. “So if you’re asking if I’m sure this is a Jerry Berger, the answer is yes, I’m sure. I have absolutely no doubt this is a previously unknown work by him.”

Jenna sat back in her chair and held the painting up before her. “It really is beautiful,” she repeated, her earlier reserve vanishing. “That woman is so pretty, and the light… The light is just perfect. What about this line of red drops? Do you know what that’s about?” Her finger traced the line of red from Abby’s hand, down the rocks, and into the alder bush.

“We don’t know,” Ginny lied, touching her finger to her nose. “Maybe it had some significance to them, or just to Jerry.” She broke off and shrugged. “Maybe it will always be a mystery.”

The other woman accepted that without a quibble. “I suppose the next question would be…how much is this worth? How do you figure that out?”

“It’s a very subjective process,” Ginny began, relieved Jenna hadn’t pursued the meaning of the red drops. “I compared it to other post mortem works by recent artists who died suddenly—there aren’t many of Jerry’s caliber—and I made some adjustments I think are in line with the prices his other originals are going for, as far as I can tell.”

“What do you mean, as far as you can tell?”

“There is no way to know if the paintings have gone in private sales, from one collector to another. That happens all the time. Unless I contact the first owner and track down all the subsequent ones, I don’t know who they are or what they paid. Most likely, they wouldn’t be willing to disclose what they paid. Jerry completed only one other painting of a nude that I know of, and this one is much, much better. All in all, I would be very surprised if this one sold for less than twenty-five thousand.”

Jenna gasped. “That much? But I only paid seventy-five dollars for it!”

“You got lucky,” Ginny reminded her.

They went on to discuss the details of a potential sale agreement. Ginny, of course, would take a cut for her work as agent. There would be further fees if Jenna agreed to allow prints to be made. Still, the Rudolphs stood to gain the bulk of any money generated by this painting.

“Would the estate take a cut as well?”

Ginny considered that for a moment. “You know, I’d have to check that out. I’d have to read the terms of the will again to see if this picture would be included in the bequest.” When Jenna seemed about to object, Ginny hastened to add, “Oh, there’s no doubt you own it now. I’d have to check with a lawyer, of course, but I think Pam and Howard would come to terms without much fuss. If, for instance, you were to offer them a percentage of the sale, if you sold it, or of the print income if you decide to go that route.”

Jenna looked at the picture and gave a rueful little laugh. “All I wanted was to get this thing cleaned up in time for my husband’s birthday. I never imagined I was getting into so much hot water!”

You don’t know the half of it.
Once again she held her tongue.

“Well,” Jenna went on in a brisk voice, “what do I owe you for cleaning this? And shall we see about framing it?”

“We can include the cleaning in the frame price, if you like. Let’s see, this needs a big frame.”

Ginny asked Jenna about the room where the picture would hang. Were there other paintings? What were the furnishings like? What color were the wall and the upholstery? Did Jenna and Bob have any preferences in framing? Did they prefer gold or wood, simple or carved, classic or modern? Armed with the answers, Ginny selected half a dozen frame samples to start, explaining that the frame needed to be deep enough to cover the stretcher bars.

“Speaking of the stretcher bars,” she added, “these are not in the best shape. They’ve gotten warped and there seems to be some mold in them. It really would be best if we put it on new stretchers with all the proper conservation techniques.”

“What do you mean?” Jenna asked.

“It’s best if the canvas never actually touches the wood. Wood is acidic, and that can make the canvas brittle. Don’t worry, we can deal with it and do it all the time. We’ll seal the stretchers so no acid can get to the canvas. When we put it in the frame, we’ll make sure the painting is buffered from that wood as well. With a valuable painting like this, it’s worth the extra care.”

Jenna agreed and they spent another half an hour selecting a frame. In the end, she chose a wide gold frame with simple beading along the inner edge and rich red tones in the gilding. She gulped a little at the price, but the frame did enhance the painting. She was wavering when another customer walked in the front door, took one look at the picture as it lay on the design table with the frame sample on one corner, and gave a heartfelt, “Wow! That looks terrific.”

Jenna looked up in surprise, and Ginny laughed. “I couldn’t have planned that! Jenna, this is our friend Martin. He’s been a customer of ours for years. He has excellent taste.”

“Ginny has taught me a lot,” Martin added. “I trust her completely.”

“In that case, I’ll go with it. You’re right, it looks very good.”

“Wait ’til you see it finished. You’ll love it.” Ginny called Elsie upstairs to deal with the work Martin was picking up, and then she finished pricing Jenna’s work. “It will take two to three weeks.”

Jenna hesitated. “Oh. Should I have it insured in the meantime? I don’t mean to imply…”

Ginny was not insulted. “Oh, I carry a lot of insurance. Don’t worry about that. A piece like this we store in what we call the safe, a walk-in closet with its own security code. We’ve never lost any artwork, and we’ll take extra special care with this one, believe me. Once it’s done, we can talk about having an unveiling, if you like. Whether or not you want to sell it, it would be a good way to introduce it to the world.”

“Maybe that would help us determine the value?” Jenna had adjusted in a hurry to the idea of owning very expensive art.

“Yes, that, too. Then you could insure it for as much as necessary.”

“Thank you, for everything, Ginny. You’ve been wonderful.”

“My pleasure, Jenna,” Ginny replied, but she was weeping inside. She had done it all for Jerry.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sue had decided to sacrifice another precious day off to her curiosity. She was back at the offices of the
Town Crier,
chasing down that story on the tax irregularities in Mill Falls. Jim, the reporter, had met her again, teasing her about becoming a private eye.

Sue teased him back. “It could be worse. Maybe I’ll become a reporter and take your job away from you!”

Jim groaned. “You wouldn’t want it. Meetings about zoning changes—dull, duller, and dullest. Last night I sat around for two hours while the Harpersville Zoning Board of Adjustment talked about driveways, for God’s sake. Now I gotta go interview builders who will, to a man—well, two men and one woman—absolutely hate the new regs. What are you looking up?”